"The Great Fiscal Panic Has Fizzled"

"But it's hard to escape the sense that debt panic was promoted because it served a political purpose—that many people were pushing the notion of a debt crisis as a way to attack Social Security and Medicare. And they did immense damage along the way, diverting the nation’s attention from its real problems—crippling unemployment, deteriorating infrastructure and more—for years on end."

Paul Krugman in The New York Times scolds the deficit scolds.